Posts Tagged ‘capitalism’

Those of you who have detailed information about my computing history, will know that I used to own a Macbook. Do not hold that against me when writing this.

These are the various iPhone generations. They are evil! And overrated! (i had one)

A while ago, actually quite a long time ago, I came over a news article which told us about Apple, and how ingenious this freakishly humongous computer-imperialism-badboy company is. First of all, all of us have heard rumors about various iProducts. “The next iPhone which will be released soon will have a fancy new screen! The next generation iPad will have USB ports!”. Well, some of these rumors are leaked discretely by Apple before an upcoming release, so that the product appears over and over again in new articles about new rumored features. Thus, everyone knows about products that will launch, and a false excitement of how wonderful a pretty mediocre product will be, flourishes in our heads (Yes, I have been victim to this).

Well, this is probably old news. But the real doobie (I saw Elaine using this word in one of her entries, and found it enthralling) is that they purposely leave out features of first generation products, so that when the next generation pops out, everyone will want to upgrade to a newer one! First generation iPhone did not include MMS, despite this being a feature that even phones from the 1990s have! If i had been able find the news articles (which was well sourced and had lots of striking examples) that I read this in (intense googling did not help), this entry would be much better.

I want one so badly. But I shall resist, because I know of their evil plan!

Also, a documentary aired on a Norwegian TV channel shows us how under capitalism, products are deliberately made so that they are prone to breaking. In the choice between a sturdy product that lasts and a product that will break down and need repairs, capitalists will go for the latter, because you get to charge extra for insurance and repair expenses, and if that cable breaks you’ll need to buy a new one.

Now, I can’t blame this solely on Apple. They are the victims of a system which rewards those who do exactly what Apple do: find brilliant ways to manipulate the public to sell their overrated, overpriced products that are prone to breaking (if you honestly have not seen a single news article about malfunctioning Apple products, you have never seen a newspaper.)

So Apple, as capitalism itself, is wicked, tricksy, false. They plays evil mindgames on us, precious.

And now that I have vented some frustration,

Peace out, liberty cabbage (which is what Americans called sauerkraut after the Germans crapped their pants and did that whole WW1 thing)

PS. Song recommendation, simply because both the artist and the song be awesome: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBqyEFyGaAM

PPS. How crazy conspiracy theorist am I sounding right now? 😀

PPPS. This entry turned out much longer than i expected. I do apologize, and for those who got through: R.E.S.P.E.C.E.T!

So, I am currently reading a book called “the Shock Doctrine: rise of disaster capitalism” by Naomi Klein. I have not read all of it, I am currently lost somewhere in the third chapter. But it is sufficient that i feel the need to point at Milton Friedman, the guru of right-wing contra-revolution and laugh.

He is basically the guy who started the ideological movement of rightwing fanatics from University in Chicago, a group of dumbfucks that figure if you cause enough trauma to a country, you will subsequently have the opportunity to introduce a sort of *shock-capitalism* to said country because whatever opposition will be distracted by the trauma of war, invasion, ethnic cleansing, genocide, you name it. So then you have the window to introduce the ultimate free market, with deregulated toll barriers, tax cuts, privatization and the works.

So, this theory was first and foremost a theory, one of those “on-paper-only” “food-for-discussion” things. Until the coup in Chile 1973. Salvador Allende had been ruling the country for some time, democratically chosen and socialistic. Nationalisation, developmentarism, you name it. It was great. He got killed by Augusto Pinochet and his followers. The contra-revolution had started.

And the country which had been at a steady 3% unemployment got, thanks to Freidmans policy, as high as 30%. People got poor and had to spend (calculated) 74% of their paychecks on bread alone, something which before this capitalistic contra-revolution was less than 14% of their income due to price regulations. Over the course of 10 years, Freidman and his friends argued for more shock, more capitalism, less state interferance, saying it would fix everything. It didn’t. For everytime that puppet Pinochet deregulated and privatized, the people got worse off. Chile went from a stable planned economy in which its people flourished, to the laughing stock of the economical world. 307% Inflation, bitches!

Not until Pinochet got his mind twisted somewhat in the right direction and started nationalizing shit, Chiles economy got a little better.

So the point of this history lesson? It is to collectively (the best way) laugh at how the contra-revolution failed to do what it was supposed to, through free markets and privatization make the economy stable and the country rich, and instead it ruined the country completely.

I’m terribly sorry, my optimistic environmentalist friends, to inform you all that Earth Hour is absolutely useless. Now you are probably thinking that I’m some right-wing conservative, yelling about how CO2 isn’t pollution or some shit, or that I’m gonna pull a Carlin and say that the planet is just fine, and that we’re the ones that are fucked. While that last statement is true, I’m an optimist like you, and I believe that we can unfuck ourselves, if we just get our heads out of our asses and start acting.

So what does that make me? I’m an environmentalist, an optimist, and a socialist, so I should be all for this awesome Earth Hour thing, right? Wrong! It is wrong because I made the mistake of following the advice to question everything, and I didn’t like the answers I found very much. There are some pretty uncool things going on with Earth Hour, things that most of you might not know about, but you will after you’ve read this blag.

So first, let’s look at what big players are participating in the event. There’s Coca-Cola of course, not the most environmentally friendly of the bunch, charged with depleting the ground-water in India. Then there’s HSBC, the extremely green bank, which of course has an entire division devoted to oil and gas investments. Pretty much exactly the same can be said about Wells Fargo. Are you starting to see the first issue here?

Pictured: Assholes

Rich douchebaggy corporations use Earth Hour to appear “greener” without actually doing anything to help the environment. The CEOs know, of course, that being massive douchebags in the dark is just as profitable as being huge dicks in the light, and if they can boost their public opinion by doing it too, well shit, Christmas came early… Again.

Next, let’s look at the glaring logical whole in the whole thing: Earth Hour doesn’t actually fix anything! I feel tempted to say that it doesn’t accomplish anything, but that would be a fallacy. It does make us feel like we’re doing something for the world, like we are in some small manner taking part of something greater than ourselves. As we all have seen throughout history, there is nothing quite as dangerous as mass suggestion. In this case I don’t think there’s any risk of a genocide or anything, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be wary of disaster. While the CO2 is getting ready to sneak up on us and force it’s giant metaphysical penis up our collective sphincter, mankind will be busy flipping light-switches.

We’re not very good at this…

And now for the solution. The first part is really easy to fix, WWF simply needs to ban bad corporations, political movements, etc. from “participating.” Now WWF obviously can’t stop these people from turning off their lights every once in a while, and even if they could, that would be a ridiculous thing to do. However what they can do is not allow them to be front figures, and just don’t give them any undeserved credit. This will restore Earth Hour’s credibility. The second part is more tricky, as it is kind of a fundamental flaw. How do you fix a broken basis? Well this is where I apparently contradict myself by saying that I don’t think the second part necessarily needs fixing!

Earth Hour does one thing well, and that is reminding everyone that things aren’t exactly going so well for us right now, and the more such reminders we get, the more likely it is that we get tired of the nagging and get off our lazy asses and do something about it! For instance we could veer to the political left, start switching off oil-rigs instead of lightbulbs, start implementing existing filtering technology at existing refineries, and research alternative energy-sources. You know, certified douche-free stuff.

I think I might have stumbled upon something genius in that last sentence. I think the new world policy should simply be to act like douchebags all the time. But that’s crazy-talk! As if there could be such a thing as a douche-free world, why, what an amusing joke. Lol socialism, am I right?

I suppose i have to start blogging again, since i used the horridly overcomplicated bullshit system that is Tumblr. Since brbcoffee has had somewhat of a makeover since last time, with the addition of other writers, i will dedicate myself to this venue in its entirety. Congratulations.

On to business, yes? I am gonig to make this short. I just got a note in the mail saying i have been called in to serve in the norwegian army. Here in norway men are obliged to serve if seemed physically and mentally fit by the army (because fuck equality, men HAVE to, women don’t). Anyways, i had my session-test-thing like 3 years ago, they told me my vision was too poor so i wouldn’t get called in. Since then my vision has degraded even more, so now i get called in. Yay. I don’t really care, i am not going. I am using my master as an excuse, as you can here in norway, to get it delayed. If they in 4.5 years still want me in i am using my practical-pedagogical studies to delay it further.

If they still insist on calling me in, after i am most likely blind without my contacts on, i will refuse and take civile duty. Because i refuse to be part of the hypocritical bullshit army that is the Norwegian one. Its generals going to Thailand to fuck street hookers for my tax money, its rules clearly making a distinction between men and women, not to speak of the blatant fucking indoctrination of its privates so that everyone that comes out loves the war in Afghanistan. I will do no such thing.

Fuck the government, fuck the army, and fuck capitalism. Obviously. Until next time,